


i wished for you

by plovers



Category: Free!
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Not Beta Read, Slice of Life, tiny appearance of hiyoiku
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-11
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-18 03:14:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29361603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plovers/pseuds/plovers
Summary: The room feels fuzzy, a blistering thing that feels comfortable. Outside, it is cold and rainy, ready for winter; inside, it feels warm and jovial, spring on its merry way.Nao finds a few things in his house. Natsuya makes it a home.
Relationships: Kirishima Natsuya/Serizawa Nao
Comments: 4
Kudos: 10





	i wished for you

**Author's Note:**

> i don't have a particular song for this one. This is woefully incomplete, but I don't have more planned out and I honestly like it this way. It'll stay this way forever.

The first wooden floorboard under Nao's left foot creaks and shifts.

It moves constantly, always seeing him off when he leaves for work and welcomes him when he comes back, exhausted. 'It's an old floorboard,' the realtor said quietly. 'Maybe a little water damaged. It shouldn't hurt you unless you step directly on the nails.' It makes an old, haunted creaking noise that, at night, sounds like a wail from a character in one of his old, paperback novels. It's next to the front door, so Nao tries to step over it and guides guests away from it. At worst, they have to tiptoe on it, risk hearing the creaking again.

Nao finds it incredibly annoying. An inconvenience. Sure, they can get it fixed, but one floorboard is not worth the money, even though most days Nao just wants to rip it out from the ground.

Natsuya finds it charming, quaint. Like a piece of the previous owners was left behind, making noise every time it’s disturbed. 

Natsuya says it’s old, sure, but it’s lovely because it makes this house a home.

♡♡♡

In almost all terms, pretentious or not, the television is the opposite of the creaky floorboard: shiny, novel, perfect, bought by them and not the previous owners. One thing both objects have in common is that they’re both relatively flat, at least when you look at them directly and not from any other angle. Nao could hold the floorboard in one hand, whereas it required the combined strength of both him and Natsuya to carry the television into their living room. But, semantics. Fucking semantics.

Even after spending the day setting up all the cables and flipping through channels, Nao didn’t like it so much. Not the television itself, but the television in the living room. It felt too big, took up too much space, blasted too-loud sound through the speakers. Even now, it looks bigger than them, bigger than life, crowding their plants into the small corners. It looks like it would break the pots if it was a bit larger, a bit heavier.

Over tea at 6:00 PM, when Nao asks what Natsuya thinks of the too-giant television sitting in their living room behind the porcelain cup, Natsuya says:

“I like it. We chose it together, right? So it’s ours. Not yours or mine. Yours and mine. Even if it’s a big television, it’s our big television.”

So Nao moves the plants around and untangles the cables and sits on the couch the next day, keeping it on a muted volume while he works.

♡♡♡

Contrary to popular belief (popular being everyone in the Kirishima household and a few other friends from old swimming teams), Natsuya likes reading. The sleek oak shelves are packed with books, hardcover and paperback, mint condition and fraying spines sharing the same space. Each one organized, by character, hours poured into keeping everything the same. There are bookmarks in a lot of them because both Natsuya and Nao abhor making dog-ears and laying them page down on the kotatsu. Natsuya stacks books on top of each other if he wants to take them with him when he travels. It's an unshakeable pattern, one he developed when he was a kid and Nao was sleeping in his hospital bed.

It's another habit—a little childish to Kirishima-san, to Ikuya—for Natsuya to drink warm strawberry milk in summer while reading books in the yard. It's a habit developed after school, sitting on their American porch with too-bright sunlight in his face, procrastinating completing his math homework because  _ dammit, _ math is annoying and reading books is productive anyway. He would've procrastinated back home regardless, this exact same method in mind.

Nao goes outside on a windy day, cool cheek against his hand, wire glasses foggy and grey. The steam rises from Natsuya's cup of milk and he's so engrossed in his novel that he doesn't realize how much he has tilted the cup and how close it is to spilling on the grass.

"Natsuya," he starts, biting the inside of his cheek before smiling, "why don't you come inside?" He nearly pulls up a chair for himself, already knowing the answer, paperback in hands.

"Nao," he says without looking up from the novel, languidly turning the beige page and taking a slow sip of his drink. Nao sighs internally, just a little. "It's nice outside."

Nao chuckles breathlessly. "If by nice, you mean 'about to rain', then yes, it is nice." He leans against the sturdy glass door, rubs the pad of his thumb across the gaps of the pages. "You're gonna get sick."

"Hmm maybe. But it's nice outside. Who knows? Maybe I'll go swimming in the river later," he jokes. "It's nice for reading. I won't get sick. I'm an athlete."

"Stop that." Nao chides him. "Remember last time you went out in the rain? You got a horrible cold and you acted up and you were in bed all groggy." In truth, he's exaggerating just a little; Natsuya's cold wasn't that bad and he wasn't all touchy-feely—it was actually a little endearing—but again, semantics.

"And you know you kept whining for me to sleep next to you while you had a fever. Nearly got me. I thought I would have to call in sick to the school the next morning saying 'Oh I'm sorry, my husband decided to be sick and clingy and now I'm the sick and clingy one while he abandons me to go to work.’ You know, as a revenge plot."

His mouth drops open. He looks at Nao incredulously before sputtering, "Wh—That's—No—I wo—"

"Relax. I wouldn't do that to you. We've been best friends since we were thirteen and together since we were fifteen. I know you well, you know me well. Just don't say you won't get sick because the last time you said that, you ate your words."

Natsuya nearly giggles and  _ oh, _ if that wasn't the sweetest sound ever.

Nao looks at him before beckoning him inside. "Let's go. You can't catch a cold now. We're making dinner; bring your cup inside."

Quietly, lovingly: "Okay."

♡♡♡

Ikuya comes over for the first time in months, holding a bag of overpriced desserts in one hand and Hiyori's hand in the other. Hiyori greets them in typical Hiyori fashion, and Natsuya greets them by swooping them into a strong-armed hug and asking why they came over in the first place.

Ikuya responds, blushing, “Oh, just for the sake of it. I...missed you both.” He moves away, sets the bag down on the kotatsu, and opens it, revealing castella and daifuku and mushi pan, still warm and fresh. Natsuya untangles himself from Nao and excuses himself to go to the kitchen. A few seconds later, Nao can hear the clumsy sounds of clattering plates and the squeaky hinges of the cabinets.

“So,” Nao starts, “was this a sporadic decision? You live a little far and it's raining.”

Ikuya opens his mouth, about to defend himself, but Hiyori inserts himself into the discussion before Ikuya can say a word. “Ikuya’s been wanting to visit for a while now. He planned it a few days ago.” Their hands are still clasped together. "Both of us, actually. Mostly him, though. He missed Natsuya. Didn't even realize it was going to rain today."

"Natsuya talks about him a lot, oh great swimming legend Kirishima Ikuya, swimming in the sun and the rain." He fakes a swoon. "Taking after his older brother."

"Wha—that was one time! Who told you??"

The kettle (has it been that long?) starts to whistle, high-pitched scream permeating the room, lingering in the kitchen. Nao holds up a finger to his mouth. "It's a secret," he whispers, although it’s not  _ really _ much of a secret.

Natsuya brings out the tea on a platter, walks over to the kotatsu. He sits down and pats the seat next to him; without a word, Ikuya sits down in that spot and grabs a warm cup, fingers flinching from the heat before going back. Hiyori sits across and picks up mochi. The kotatsu heats up. Ikuya laughs softly at Natsuya choking on the mushi pan as the rain splatters on the pavement outside.

The room feels fuzzy, a blistering thing that feels comfortable. Outside, it is cold and rainy, ready for winter; inside, it feels warm and jovial, spring on its merry way.

♡♡♡

  
  


_ you might not have been my first love _

_ but you were the love that made _

_ all the other loves _

_ irrelevant  _

_ ~ Rupi Kaur _

  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> [Twitter](https://twitter.com/glitchedbirds)   
>  [CuriousCat](https://curiouscat.me/plovers)   
>  [Carrd](https://plovers.carrd.co)


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